Art Collectors - Why They Do or Don't Collect Plein Air

For the last few months, in preparation for the Plein Air Painters Chicago fifth I Heart Plein Air Conference, I have interviewed seven individuals who represent, collect or acquire art. The inteviews have taught me that every person and organization that collects art, has a different reason and aesthetic, and that I, as an artist, can't paint for them. As artists we can paint for ourselves and find kindred spirits. I am honored to say that some of these collectors are my kindred spirits.

Here are links to those video interviews.  

Mary Longe overview of the interviews: https://youtu.be/17eHy45HZBQ

Michelle Strassburger https://youtu.be/TcLSTf9BD3E

Chicago designer Michelle Strassburger has been collecting since the mid-eighties and has amassed collections-of-collections of outsider art, musical instruments, dolls, furniture, crosses and figurative, still life and plein air paintings – 3000 pieces, at least. She sees the Palette & Chisel as the place to find emerging artists and has several pieces by PAPC artists represented. She describes what inspires her, her process for going through exhibits and choosing paintings, and what she plans for the future of her collection. Mary Longe interviews Michelle Strassburger in her Chicago home.

Samantha Michalski https://youtu.be/hHo9cHQ1-h4

A prize for winning best in show at the Cedarburg Plein Air Festival is to have your painting purchased by the Cedarburg Art Museum. The organization’s mission reflects its connection to the community and surrounding areas. Museum Director, Samantha Michalski reflects on the role of museums, and their connection to the community and to artists. She explains why the CAM and other regional museums are partial to plein air paintings. Mary Longe talks with Samantha Michalski via Zoom.

Rick Reinert https://youtu.be/1ScPAq3zpzw

Rick and Ann Reinert founded Reinert Fine Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Charleston, SC, and they understand artists, and after years as a gallery owner they understand the people who purchase art. In this conversation, Rick helps us understand the role and the opportunity of a gallery for an artist. He explains what artists should do if they’d like to be represented, the opportunity for them, and the responsibilities in the relationship between artist and gallery. Reinert Fine Art Gallery represents locals, Errol Jacobson, Mary Qian, and William Schneider. Mary Longe talks with Rick Reinert via Zoom.

Barbara Van Driel https://youtu.be/cR_KO97w3i8

Barbara Van Driel’s three residences have different genres of art. What they share is her love for hanging multiple pieces from masters in the genres. In Chicago, her home has more than twenty paintings by PAPC Master Artist, Nancy King Mertz. Barbara tells us why she collects in that fashion, her relationship to the artists, and to the art. Mary Longe interviews Barbara Van Driel in her Chicago home.

Canice Prendergast https://youtu.be/JaYLZV3YWEw

Canice Prendergast manages acquisitions of art work for the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business along with a team of students, faculty and alums. Here he brings his experience with the global art market and his expertise as an economics professor to explain how and why the UC acquires items for its collection. You;ll be surprised by some responses. Mary Longe talks with Canice Prendergast via Zoom.

Jose Santillan https://youtu.be/0Ul0xgpi_lE

Jose Santillan has favorite types of art and favorite artists but likes to find new ones. He establishes an annual budget and sometimes buys a painting from a recognized artist or decides it’s the year for serendipitous buying. He tells us what moves him to make purchases. Mary Longe talks with Jose Santillan via Zoom.

Elizabeth Murphy https://youtu.be/3Iv1oaLymCk

Collecting Art: Buying Plein Air Online, A Conversation with Elizabeth Murphy, Chicago, IL Beth Murphy combs the internet for art and buys from all over the world. She wanders through craft and fine art fairs, and even renaissance festivals searching out emerging artists. She rarely pays more than $100 and has more paintings than she can frame or hang. She knows what she likes, what’s worth the money, and tells us why. Mary Longe talks with Beth Murphy via Zoom.

My Art Dish, a video chat with Guest Artist Stephanie Weidner

Grandpa Still Snowboards - How Staying Still Doesn't Allow Us to Grow

What’s the name of that restaurant? You know, the one on Irving, no, on Cicero, no, on Milwaukee? You know… the one with Baked Alaska*, it’s on the tip of my tongue…

That searching for a word, it’s called anomia. I’ve had run ins with it for a long time. I admit, a catalyst for retiring at the first chance came after sitting in meetings and feeling stupid. The times I couldn’t find the memory of the results of a previous day’s meeting, or I’d look at someone and couldn’t come up with their name, let alone their kid’s names. When anomia strikes, it erodes my self-confidence and immediately makes me think I will be in “the home” before the bananas turn yellow. 

Not so fast…. In the last few days, after truly launching my child across the country into his life after graduate work, after a year of retirement, after four years of learning to paint, and two and a half years of living on my retirement income, I’ve realized I put off focusing on my own growth and development in this next part of life. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been talking about it with whomever will listen… friends, neighbors, the Whole Foods cashier.  I typically spew the first part of my exploration like the gush from a fire hose, as the unsuspecting ask, how are you? Fine. I’m trying to figure out my life. I am done with health care, could use some money, I want a life of meaning, and painting and people, should I move? And on and on. 

It’s Wednesday and I have a wide open day, ripe for me to scratch off the items on my to-do list that extends to a second side of paper. I look forward to my still life painting class at the other end of my day that is part of my self directed curriculum on becoming an artist.  

Development as an artist is one of two successful elements I can claim on my plan to retire with intention. The other, which I may delve into more at another time, was living on my retirement income for more than a year prior to declaring a retirement date. Once I felt confident that I could exist, I set a date first in my own mind, and eventually with my employer. 

Which brings me back to today. I’m eyeing tchotchkes on a shelf I want to clear… for good, while packing my back pack for today’s attempt at a good submission for a plein air competition in Schaumburg.  I’m feeling pressure to get on with my life in the near term, and make sense of the rest of my days. Stat! Gratefully, I woke up to an email from one of my friends who’d sent a link to a TedTalk that she thought spoke to my woman’s “search for meaning.” It does. It’s by Bill Thomas, MD. a Harvard trained geriatrician who is reframing aging. I listened to the Ted Talk and intrigued, found another, more meaty presentation that got me to breathing a little easier. 

One of his messages is about anomia – the word finding issue I mentioned above.  When a young person stores a word in their brain, they don’t know a lot, and there is a lot of room to store words in their brain. Their filing system is simple, a single filing cabinet. If you live long, you have many filing cabinets, with many words, filed in different locations for different reasons. When you can’t think of a name of a restaurant or a person, it’s actually a consequence of how much you’ve stored.  

Research has shown that when people are asked to recall, young people remember the details, elders remember the gist. Elders have the store of knowledge to connect many aspects and pull on the architecture of the brain to activate and retrieve from different parts. Our brains have the power to provide a broader view of the issue. In other words, we elders have the gist of the story. In that sense, Bill Thomas jokes, “young people are neurologically disabled.”  

Yet, as a society, we don’t think in these terms. I smiled at Doctor Thomas’ concept of how we ineffectively cast “still” in our language. My Aunt Edith at 84 still drives. Grandpa still snowboards at 91… barefoot.  We are measured and somewhat revered by how we STAY the same. If we don’t stay still, we are disappeared.

Remember taking a child to the pediatrician and receiving a report in weight and height, or later talking with the child’s teachers about their maturity?   We have metrics to show change and growth from childhood, through adolescents and into adulthood. We recognize a fourteen year old who hasn’t dropped their blanky is acting inappropriately for their age. A twentysix year old still living at home…. (oops, scratch that example.)  Even with social trends like kids living longer at home, we recognize the end of the younger developmental phase, yet we don’t have a positive, recognizable phase for after adulthood. We are destined to stay still or disappear. It's a limbo, a time before death. It's not a recognized time for its own growth. For the most part, we measure peoples in terms of loss of adulthood. Dr. Thomas offers the name to this time as elderhood. And, he doesn't see it as staying still. 

I can relate… I am becoming an elder. I am done with certain things in adulthood. I am done being a slave to a work schedule. I am done with progress reviews that indicated my worth to an employer. I am done with conformity to fashion, cosmetics and other things that dictate how I must present myself. I really don’t understand cosmetic surgery, except for those days when I feel myself disappearing. I am done with raising a child… we now can have adult conversations. And, I am ready to grow. 

I am ready to reframe how I think about this time in my life. I want to create. I want to create meaning. I want to  be a successful painter- it burns me when someone asks, is this a hobby? Not really, I responded on Monday. The guys who asked followed up with, so you're making a living? Not a big one, I told him. But I am, not in money maybe, but this is big living for me.  

This morning, I am grateful to my friend who sent the link to Doctor Thomas’ talk (I encourage you to watch it) and I am grateful to him for helping me reframe my sense of self and my sense of meaning. 

Let the gist begin! 

*Community Tavern 

Chicago Commutes and the Kitty Cat Ninja Mask

Riding toward work yesterday morning, I was chilled watching the crews using leaf blowers on the tracks presumably to move the freshly fallen snow. Train engines are equipped with snowplows here in Chicago, but that must not be enough. Along with the manual labor, the Metra keeps fires burning along their tracks too.  On a late train one night, I was alarmed the first time I saw them. I thought for sure homeless had taken over the train yards to burn the wood ties to keep warm. A conductor explained that buried along the rails are giant gas burners to keep tracks from accumulating ice particularly at the switches.

Last night on the way home, our train came to a stop where the conductor announced that the train ahead of us had hit a car. We had to wait till the track was cleared. Twenty minutes later they announced, “We were on the move so quickly because there were no fatalities.” I imagine that a driver thought they could get around the gates in time but the ice prevented the car wheels from gaining traction. No matter the mode, winter commuting is a bit of a trick.

Everybody has their own technique for dealing with winter comfort. Layering is the key to outdoor conditions and to deal with uneven temperatures indoors. Desk chairs are draped with fleece jackets or scarves that work like wrapping blankets.  It's not unusual for Monday mornings to see people still in their coats an hour after getting to work as the building heating system struggles to reach designated temps. And, where there are thermostats there are battles. I really see few judicious attempts at raising or lowering by a degree or two. It seems that people use the dial like an on or off switch and swing it to the hottest or the coldest, so comfort is fleeting.

I've lived here long enough to be ready to walk in the cold. My coat resembles a sleeping bag with feet sticking out. I wrap myself in a scarf and pull on a hat and gloves too. My route to and from the train station zigzags through streets. I felt pretty toasty yesterday, until I rounded one corner where my breath dissolved... maybe froze before it could be inhaled. Like moving from oven to freezer, I turned north, walking for a block into a wind corridor that rivaled an astronaut's space training exercise. Patches of ice made for treacherous footing. I hugged the wall of one building to get protection from the wind. Passing a door, a man in a Nanook-hood, his face safe within at least four inches of fur and fabric, blindly barreled into me. The temperature isn't the only danger.

Another man passed me wearing a white ninja ski mask with graphics that covered his everything I could see under a baseball hat. His unique vibe made me forget the cold for a few steps... till I had to turn north again.

I found an image of the mask. It’ll keep my mind off the cold again today. At least today, I am working from home.

Plane Air December

To Dallas                           To Tucson                   To Chicago

                   

Architectural Artifacts, Chicago and Painting Like Hemingway

When plein air is too cold in Chicago...

A couple Sundays back, I spent more than an hour wandering around Architectural Artifacts, an antiques warehouse on Chicago's north-side Ravenswood area (right by the El), where five-foot cheese burgers go to rest... on top of merry-go-round horses or counter from a jewelry store. Seriously, every few feet, I found myself reminded of grade school or the time we..... There are all kinds of items I said, what the hell? In one room, there were several high top tables standing at different heights - waste, neck sternum-tall with a round stainless surface on top of an industrial-sized slinky. You could press on it and it would go up or down - no hydraulics. They must have been used in some kind of manufacturing that a workman needed to maneuver from bottom to top on a big piece of something. If I only had room for one! (Gratefully, I don't.)

It took a lot of hunting to find a place where I could sit, lay out my brushes and paints where it would be convenient to me and out of the way of anyone else, and with a view I wanted to paint. Ok, that last point is moot - the place overwhelmed with possibility. What surprised me was the finding that once I sat still and narrowed my view, what I intended to paint went out of focus. Instead, saw angels - literally, angels on the bank work stand. Each of the four legs of the table held a different metal sculpture with opulent detail. I wonder how many people really saw them? I didn't until I sat nearly eye to eye with them, but they were at a stand up table. I wish I knew the thinking behind them... the interior designers consideration for telling the inner story of a bank... Here at the altar of commerce, I commend my money. The angel I looked at directly spread it's arms and wings, the one in the distance with flowing robes nearly took flight. The other two were behind lout of sight behind other furniture and artifacts.

To paint this, I sat on a black metal bench that had ridges creating a serpentine of Ss down the middle to outline where butts (small ones, by the way) should rest in a Brazilian ice cream parlor. Every two sections for seating, the designer placed a twelve-inch round on a pole to serve as a table. On one of those, I placed my watercolors and cup of water, and on my lap my Arches watercolor board.  (You know how every interest and hobby has it's efficiencies? For watercolor, Arches paper  company stacks high quality paper bound to a heavy hard cardboard - a rip-off note-pad of watercolor paper. The rubber binding in this case goes around all but an inch of the entire stack. No matter how much water one puts on the paper in the process of painting, the next page of the stack doesn't get wet. A miracle innovation! I carry a mini-Swiss army knife to gingerly remove a page from the deck to begin a new piece.)

You, as a reader, may already notice that I have trouble editing. I try to include too many thoughts, and too many words. This is a personality flaw and not confined to writing. My painting is the same. I wish I could include every hair, freckle, crack and dust-mite. I wish I could, but I also don't have the patience. There is way too much to say or paint. I want to paint like Hemingway's complete six-word story... "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn."  Bam! What a word picture. Right?

Unfortunately, I've also learned from writing that the brilliance isn't in the words you first lay down, it's about the editing. This painting is hugely edited. There were many more things on the walls, hanging from the ceiling and on the table tops in view between the angels and me. 

My guess is that when I go back again, the items will be sold or moved and I won't be able to attempt the same view again,  though I'd like to do so. I will remind myself, no matter what I find, to narrow my focus to see more.

BTW, Architectural Artifacts is also an event space where I want to be invited... maybe throw a party. There's info to the event planner at the link above. 

Fall in Chicago

Fall in Chicago... even the young buildings are donning their puffy jackets.

Urban Sketching - Plein Air June/ July

Since taking the online Sketchbook Skool classes I'm rarely without at least one of my sketchbooks, pens, Niji pens and watercolors. None of these are more than 15 minutes of effort. My lines are out of perspective, but with each I learn. 

A Workers Rally in Union Square, San Francisco with Tuba, Horn and Drum

Casa Tortuga, our Air BnB Santa Fe, NM

Evanston IL, Lighthouse

 

Fourth of July - Prep for Parade

China Town, Chicago, IL 

Vegetables For Sale 

Guest Artists

Missed My Train by a Minute, Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL

On the Chicago River a Poseidon Adventure

There are so many things with these photos from this morning that I observe. 

• This view from the Randolph Street Bridge shows Chicago’s bustling growth.  Check out the three cranes each attached to a new building project.
• The Poseidon Barge. It’s made with Legos. Note the sections of it. They must have brought it down the river in pieces then connected them together.
• The Poseidon Barge.   What a mess. It’s not likely that stuff is not bar coded or RFID tagged to be easily found. I bet they sent someone up to where I’m standing to see if theysee what they can’t find.
• The Poseidon Barge. It’s huge! It takes up more than half the river.
• The Poseidon Barge. I know it’s a Greek god but don’t they remember the iconic swim by Shelly Winters?
• The Poseidon Barge Men Working Please Slow Down. Who wrote that? Their boss. Their investor. Their lover? No, no, maybe.  
• The Poseidon Barge. What a mess. It’s not likely that stuff is not bar coded or RFID tagged to be easily found. I bet they sent someone up to where I’m standing to see if they can see what they can’t find
• The Poseidon Barge Men Working Please Slow Down. Who wrote that? Their boss. Their investor. Their lover? No, no, maybe.  

I Don't Work Fridays - An intentional decision to change my life balance

This posted in January 9, 2015. 

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” (American Proverb) I remember seeing this saying on a poster in college, profound for me as Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty. And today, I begin a new day, knowing that I didn’t know a lot back then about the future… like I might turn thirty some day… but at least today, I know that I don’t know what ten years from now looks like. I only know that I have more time in my weeks to use well. Today is my first free Friday in my four-day work week.

It sounds great, right? For now, and with intention, I no longer work a traditional five-day work week. I find it a bit daunting now that it finally arrived. 

I don’t remember seeing this T. S. Eliot saying on a poster, but it speaks to me: “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” (First, I like that the poet ends his sentence in a preposition. More importantly, I like the idea he ends up with.) Since my first meeting on Monday morning of this past week, when It took three reminders to my colleagues that I work a 4 day week, I created a mantra   to cement this new fact of my work life, “I don’t work Fridays.” It turns out that I needed to use the saying every single day when looking at calendars to schedule meetings and calls. Reactions were for the most part positive. They spanned from a smile and congratulations, to encouragement and reminders to protect it. There were challenges too. That same person who told me to protect it, told me I should attend a meeting because it was important. I don’t work Fridays, was all I said.  A while later another person who'd heard me say it asked me in an email, after I declined an e-invitation to a meeting for today. I am pretty sure she was yanking my chain. I responded with, I don’t work Fridays.

Reality set in as this week unfolded, by Wednesday afternoon, I realized that it would be difficult to get all my tasks checked off my list. In the olden days, (last week), I might finish projects in the evening or on the weekend. Now that I am intentionally working a four-day work week, I realize that my intention isn't about jamming in a five day work week into four. My objective now is to focus on exactly what I need to do to be considered successful in my work. Today, the first day of the rest of my life, I declare that I am no longer ambitious for growth in my career. I am leaving behind fears of being passed over, settling and complacency. I am embracing being relevant and highly valuable today in my job. This is hugely freeing. It may be the key to allowing me to be everything I have wanted all along.

The plan began August 2014 while developing strategy and budgets for 2015. I offered up 20% of my salary to make ends meet... though it may have sounded precipitous, it wasn't without thought. A catalyst for this decision began much earlier as I wanted more time to explore  what I am meant to do in life. I feel it… a flow… a moment of peace, maybe success, a full deep breath. I am driven to know that more. I like what the French painter/sculptor, Jean Dubuffet* said,  “Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself and an eventual extinction.” So this morning, I have no intention of wearing away myself, though I do expect extinction. Instead, I’d like to wear myself… to fully express myself. On the first day of the rest of my life I am booking a trip to Spain… talking to a friend about an investment, breaking a loaf of bread, taking lunch to someone shut in after a work out, and working on a painting. Tomorrow is the weekend, when, ok, I’ll admit it, I might sneak a peek at my emails, because, I don’t work Fridays. 

It's a beginning.

*Sculpture at the State of Illinois building, Randolph and Dearborn, Chicago

Michi-hand Home

I grew up, please look at your right hand palm side up, in Michigan. I was born about an inch below the start of the thumb in Grosse Pointe, went to college in Mt. Pleasant where the ring finger and middle finger meet, lived in Lansing and worked at Michigan State about an inch below that and before then, worked in Jackson and lived there for two months until the cockroaches drove me to live in Lansing with my boyfriend…. who eventually became husband Number One. He was from Lapeer, that area at the base of the thumb inland a half an inch. 

My parents were from Ionia across the State, at the intersection of baby finger and ring finger. Husband Number Two grew up over on the left hand in Wisconsin and we have a son who lives, if I had really big wrists, just around the bend at the bottom of the Lake in Chicago. 

It’s very handy to come from Michigan. 

The People You See Every Day

Each time I climb from the Chicago Metra trains up to the Madison Street entrance heading toward work, I look for William who sits in a webbed chair with a container at his feet collecting cash. Sometimes he sports a crucifix, the size that hung over chalkboards at St. Philomena's just under the clock, like a bolo around his neck and props a hand-made poster with the head of Jesus from the painting of him in the Garden of Gethsemane reminding commuters that he loves them.

The last time I saw William, street construction forced him to move a block west of his usual spot. The construction rerouted all commuters around a corner and William, I noticed, placed his chair and belongings in the middle of tight space between a wall from the train station and the street. When it was cold, like it was the last time I saw him, I could see he wore a turtle neck, a wool sweater, two scarves, a fake fur ear flap hat,  a hood, gloves, boots and ski pants. He wrapped his shoulders with a purple fleece blanket with yellow chicks and tied fringe. He covered his legs with a red plaid blanket that looked like it was used as a lap robe in a Model T. The last time I saw him, William's legs stretched long and close to the icy waves that traffic rolled near his feet and commuters splashed as they leaped to and from the curb to miss the ankle deep slush.

Six years ago, I started commuting downtown by train. For a couple weeks, I’d see him, but I ignored him. I pretended he wasn't there; I’d think about him though. Sometimes I was charitable and considered that he looked old and didn't have money... after all we were in an economic depression that trickled up. Sometimes, especially in summer, I felt resentful of slogging inside to my desk for the entire nice day.  As time passed, I couldn't ignore him. I'd see him every single morning and began to smile or say hello when passed him. After seeing him every day, it felt rude not to know his name, so I asked him and he told me, then surprised me by asking mine. Then, when I climbed from the trains I’d say, “Hi William”, as I walked by and from behind me I'd hear, "Have a Blessed Day, Mary."  

He left his post exactly at six. Sometimes, if catching the 5:58, I’d see him bending over pulling his things together to head to wherever he called home. I knew he must have some place, a place to store the supplies of his trade, at least, because the items rotated in an out of use… baskets, buckets, a milk case, an umbrella in the rain, or the crucifix and the poster with Jesus’ head. 

“Mary”, William waved me over one day. “I’m eighty three. I need eighteen dollars to cover my rent, can you spare it?” I knew better than to pull out my wallet in public or on demand. “Not now, William, I’ll see what I can do at the end of the day or tomorrow morning.” This became a regular, every couple months connection,. Sometimes the amount remained the same, but the cause changed to food or meds. Sometimes the amount changed by a dollar or two. His age always changed… eighty  three, eighty six, ninety two, I figured, more likely he didn’t know, rather than forgetfulness. I tucked a twenty in my pocket and hand it to him the next time I’d see him. I accept his blessings and thanks gladly, but, his smile, his gentle grand fatherly tap on my arm that accompanied it jolted me each time. He needed the money. He paid rent, he went to a doctor, he took meds and he was eighty something, ninety something... it didn't matter. The twenty bucks went into a pocket rather than the bucket or basket lined with coins and singles and i didn't feel duped into giving it to him. 

That was... that is the issue for me... seeing all the street people and not knowing whether they are playing me. There is a guy by our building who is in a wheel chair with a oxygen tank hooked on the back. It's never attached to him. From our seventh floor view, we've seen him roll over to a walled area in the garden below and count his money. Maybe he has a daily quota, maybe he is tucking it away for safety, I find myself skeptical of his need and wish I could be less judgmental about his entrepreneurism. Once, leaving work in the middle of the day, I saw William tell off, scare off another street person from pan-handling in his area by the train station. I realized there are prime locations and I wondered, since this is Chicago, who makes money on them. Is there a cop that allows them, or a street person union? For a year or two there was a man who smashed himself up against the wall that marks the end of the Metra property by the bridge, clearly the marked end of William's post. He held a cardboard sign that only got rattier, never replaced. saying he was a vet and needed food. He didn't have a chair or a bucket or an umbrella. He wore a hooded sweatshirt usually with the hood up and like his sign, continued to deteriorate as time went on, until he wasn't there any more. William shared his space with a woman who sold StreetWise, the newspaper that homeless can sell and keep the proceeds. She stood like a statue, hands outstretched offering the papers. I rarely head her voice or saw anyone buy a paper from her. She disappeared too.

The sound of change clanging caught my attention at the spot in front of the station where I used to see William. A young man with the same deep mahogany skin as William’s stood in olive shorts and a bright red t-shirt shakes a Styrofoam Dunkin Donuts cup. The foot traffic clustered waiting for the traffic light to allow us to cross and I noticed the man with the cup now stood next to me also waiting for traffic to clear. “Do you know William?” I asked him. “The man who often sat right where you were standing?”

He knew exactly. “William died. He was ninety three. His heart gave out. He got pneumonia. He didn’t recover from the winter. He died.” 

I thanked him and he blessed me. 

I can't stop thinking about William and about the other street people. I wonder why I don't invite one home, volunteer somewhere, budget an amount each month.... something. It's easier to walk by. It's more "fun" to share a sandwich leaving of a restaurant. 




Distance allows distance.